Being a doctor is hard. Being a leader of doctors is even harder.
The greatest challenge physician leaders face is changing the practices of their front-line physician colleagues who control nearly all healthcare decisions and dollars.
Physicians don't like being told what to do. Showing them evidence is ineffective--studies show that it can take years for well-publicized best practices to diffuse into standard practice. Even paying physicians to do the right thing (pay-for-performance) has mixed results. And discretely notifying physicians about individual performance data--such as their rates of readmission, hand-washing, and surgical site infections--doesn't influence them either.
What then should the physician leader do? Go public with that data. Not World Wide Web public, but internally public--at section meetings, on display in the hallway, or in group...
This is a preview. Get the full text through your school or public library.